Posted on 01/10/2004 12:34:59 PM PST by archy
City fires third officer in excessive-force case
[Memphis, TN]
By Sherri Drake
Contact
January 10, 2004
A third Memphis police officer has been fired for using excessive force on a mentally unstable man who died during an arrest.
Denvey Buckley, 43, died of a heart attack as he scuffled with officers April 19.
Police were called to Buckley's home at 1115 Rembert in South Memphis because he drank bleach and cut his wrists and throat in a suicide attempt.
Police used chemical spray and police batons to restrain him.
Officer Kurtis Schilk, 32, was fired Jan. 2. He was an officer in the Northeast precinct and on the force since 1998.
Schilk and the two other fired officers, Phillip Penny, 26, and Robert Tebbetts, 30, have responded with appeals to the Memphis Civil Service Commission.
Memphis Police Association officials said the officers were doing their job properly and are being punished because the incident was sensational.
MPA attorney Ted Namsom said it's easy to point fingers in the cool of the courtroom, but officers work in the heat of the streets.
"You can't always say 'Hold still so I can hit you where I was trained,' " he said.
Dr. O. C. Smith, Shelby County medical examiner, ruled the overweight Buckley had heart disease and his death was of natural causes.
Buckley had several welts on his back caused by batons, and a large gash on the back of his head.
If civil service officials find the grounds for termination unjust, the officers could get their jobs back, officials said.
- Sherri Drake: 529-2510
More to come. It looks like they're trying to beat the feds to the punch [choice of term intentional] over the 01 December 2003 Memphis police beating of a former Memphis teacher in his home after he'd been handcuffed, taken outside his apartment, and beatenm and kicked by more than a dozen of the Central Precinct's finest.
Unfortunately for them, one of the apartment residents videotaped everything that happened after they brought him out of his apartment, with both hands cuffed behind his back.
There was at least a MPD Sergeant and LT on the scene, as well as paramedics and a news crew from the nearby channel 13 TV newsroom. Oops.
Do they pay you for this?
It seems likely they'll stay fired at a minimum. But they may be looking at federal felony charges similar to those in the Rodney King beating case as well. And in that case, since Rodney King did not die as a result of the police beating, the maximum penalty against the cops did not apply. In this case, it could:
United States Code, U.S. Criminal Code- Section 241: Conspiracy against rights
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or
If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured -
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death.
And the filing of a second similar case against the MPD could result in the designation of the Memphis Police as a *Racketeer-influenced Corrupt organization* under state or federal law- as a criminal gang.
There's a second such case just waiting to happen.
I'm a semi-retired newspaperman from Indiana, though I covered events in the Mid-South [Memphis/Little Rock/ Jackson, Mississippi] for WorldNetDaily during the Clinton-Gore regime days, and am similarly attentive with the recent Weaseley Clark political effort.
And I'm one of the dozen-15 members of the Tennessee Investigative Reporters Project, if they don't pitch me out for not yet having paid my 2004 dues.
No disrepect detected from me- you wanted to know my background and I let you know, though hardly in comprehensive detail. I began as a newspaperman following attending Indiana University's Ernie Pyle School of Journalism on the GI Bill then under the direction of Dr Richard Gray, formerly an editor at LIFE magazine, and Dr. Will Counts, my faculty advisor, who moved me into newspapers- his world- rather than newsmagazine photography.
Neither did I see either of the two events I described, though I have met Shelby County Councilman Buck Welford, who filed the federal case on behalf of the victim's family, and know him to be a pretty sharp ol' boy and effective Memphis lawyer- I wonder if this is gonna end up a John Grisham novel.
I have, however interviewed a couple of Memphis cops and seen the videotape of the second [Dec '03] beating, which has yet to have made the TV or newspapers here. But we shall see....
And there are a few other incidents going on hereabouts that have got the light of publicity on the MPD. And they're reacting like cockroaches.
-archy-/-
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What?? No welts or gashes on the hand(s) holding the knife wielded by the now-dead perp?
As I said about this incident in a previous thread:
Horse puckey, Deputy Chief Janice. You can't zero in on "pressure points" with a baton under the "best" of conditions (e.g. unlawfully, with the subject restrained or unconcious) -- batons, expandable or otherwise, are to be used to effect "pain control" and temporary incapacitation through swelling of soft tissue, and not bone, with the legs, and not the arms, as the target.
MPA attorney Namsom seems to "get it," but from the wrong angle, IMO. In fact, his attempt at justification of the officers' improper use of batons would appear to be more damning than exculpatory.
Nice work, counselor. You missed the point entirely -- probably because you said what you were told to say by the same (allegedly) bungling cops and their (allegedly) duplicitous bosses.....
O.C. Smith is having his own problems- his testimony in Memphis area court cases has become something of a liability of late, and his future hereabouts is uncertain, to say the least.
The thing is, that the source of Dr. Smith's problems is federal, and apparently related to the pending execution of convicted Memphis copkiller Philip Workman, in which O.C. Smith's testimony played an important part. Problem is, if it wasn't a bullet from Workman's .45 automatic that killed Memphis police Lt. Ronnie Oliver, then it had to have come from one of the other two MPD cops at the 1981 scene- who swore they didn't fire. And to make it even more interesting, one of those two cops, Steve Parker, is now a Memphis Assistant US attorney, and it's the federal investigation into O.C. Smith that delayed Workman's execution.
The interesting possibility is that if a fellow Memphis cop shot Lt. Oliver, accidentally or otherwise, and the police at the scene conspired to frame Workman for the death, with Dr. Smith assisting after the fact, it's not just charges of perjury and obstruction of justice that they're facing.
United States Code, Title 18, U.S. Criminal Code,
If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured -
Section 241 - Conspiracy against rights:
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death. Now wouldn't it be ironic if the holdup man charged with Lt Oliver's murder has the charges against him dropped, the death penalty provisions, at least, and the cops who tried to frame him end up behind bars themselves- possibly for life.
Or worse.
-archy-/-
At least then we can promptly obtain the telephone number of a lawyer or a private security/executive protection service.... 8~) / 8~(
At least then we can promptly obtain the telephone number of a lawyer or a private security/executive protection service.... 8~) / 8~(
Afraid the lawyer won't be much help. I'll post the info tomorrow [from a court case today]
I missed this one earlier this month:
The Memphis Commercial-Appeal
The region in brief
December 10, 2003
METRO
MPD chief's ex aide, accused of assaulting sister, out on bond
A former executive assistant to Memphis Police Director James Bolden has been indicted on domestic-violence assault charges.
Sgt. SherryKwan Kelley, 35, until recently executive administrative assistant to the director, was indicted by a Shelby County grand jury last Thursday. She turned herself in Friday for booking and was released on a $500 bond.
Kelley, a commissioned officer since February 1992, has been placed on nonenforcement status pending the outcome of the indictment.
On Sept. 15 Kelley and her sister were involved in an altercation inside an apartment at 110 N. McLean, according to police reports.
The sister, identified in police reports as Kim Evette Penn, said Kelley grabbed her by the hair, hit her in the head and kneed her in the chest.
Police summoned to the apartment reported seeing a small bruise on the victim's arm. The victim refused medical attention, according to a report.
- Chris Conley
It sounds like a serious housecleaning is in order for Memphis -- far beyond what a few cans of Raid could accomplish.
Thanks for the up(chuck)date.......
It sounds like a serious housecleaning is in order for Memphis -- far beyond what a few cans of Raid could accomplish.
It seems that among other problems, Memphis is getting the crooked castoffs from elsewhere.
Case in point: 100 Pounds Of Marijuana Found In Tennessee Cop's Car -archy-/-
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